Disclosure: I received a copy of the book Scoop Adventures: The Best Ice Cream of the 50 States by Lindsay Clendaniel from the lovely folks at Page Street Publishing. Thank you, guys! Any links to purchase the book are affiliate links. I will get a small percentage of the sale, and you won’t be charged any extra. Everybody wins! Also, stay tuned at the bottom of the post for your chance/s to win a copy of Scoop Adventures of your very own!I tried hummus for the first time almost 25 years ago. I wasn’t quite sure if I liked it, so I kept eating it just to make sure. And I have been eating it ever since. I am now 98% sure I am in love with it, but I will keep eating it. Just to make sure.

The chickpeas are nice, of course, but what really keeps me coming back is the tahini. Nothing more than ground-to-a-paste toasted sesame seeds, it is much earthier and more mysterious than peanut butter, although they do have a similar flavor profile. Tahini has a thinner consistency than even natural peanut butter. I wonder if that means that sesame seeds contain more oil? Probably. Tahini is less sweet than peanut butter, too. Since peanut butter is always intriguing in sweet applications, I’ve always been smitten with the idea of using tahini in some sort of dessert.

I made one foray into the world of sweet tahini goodness quite a few years ago, BB (Before Blogging) when I made lovely rich-ish rolls that had a sweetened tahini ribbon running through them. I wasn’t quite sure if I liked so, so I kept eating just to make sure. Until they were all gone.

When I found myself helping to organize a special blog tour for Scoop Adventures: The Best Ice Cream of the 50 States, I knew that I wanted to feature the author Lindsay Clendaniel’s recipes. You most likely know from the first tour or from the book if you’ve already purchased a copy, that the ice cream recipes she gathered from around the country are all great. But it bears emphasizing that Lindsay Clendaniel is a maker of fantastic and inventive ice creams in her own right. So for this tour, all of us are featuring ice creams that Lindsay created. Many are sourced from her Scoop Adventures book while others of us turned to her blog, Scoop Adventures, for inspiration.

Chocolate Sesame Brittle Ice Cream

I opened the pages of the last chapter of Scoop Adventures, “Inspirations from My Ice Cream Travels,” to find my recipe, and I knew what I was going to make as soon as I saw the name: Chocolate Sesame Brittle Ice Cream. Well, hello, my love! It gets a double sesame punch from both tahini in the base and a ton of sesame seeds in the brittle.

Lindsay makes the base using a two-part method. First comes a chocolate “liquor” flavored with both cocoa powder and bittersweet chocolate along with the tahini. That is then added to a fairly standard Philadelphia-style (no egg) base. The brittle is lovely and complex in flavor. The sugar comes in three forms: granulated white sugar, brown sugar and honey. It also gets just a touch of cinnamon. It really is a lovely candy on its own and is perfect broken up and folded into the intensely-chocolate, not-too-sweet base. This is one grown up, not-too-sweet chocolate ice cream for sure.
I am not going to share the recipe here on the blog since it is printed in the cookbook. The book is truly worth owning, if just for this recipe alone.

If you have not already purchased a copy of Scoop Adventures: The Best Ice Cream of the 50 States, do consider clicking any of the links in this post or on the ad in my sidebar. They will take you straight to the Amazon page where you can pick up a copy. As well, please enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post, and don’t forget to visit all the other participating bloggers’ pages to enter their giveaways as well.

Scoop Adventures Giveaway for #ICTScoopAdventures

I hope it’s clear to you by now that I am a fan of Scoop Adventures. Not only is this the second post I’ve written about the book, it is also the second copy I’m giving away (courtesy of Page Street Publishing). Plus, they are running an ad on the sidebar here, and I only sell ads directly to folks whose products I love. Please do enter for your chance(s) to win a copy for yourself, or put it on your wishlist and make someone get you a copy!

Only residents of the US and Canada are eligible for this giveaway. Please leave separate comments for each entry.

Leave a comment here telling me what your ultimate ice cream flavor is–whether you’ve had it before or you just made it up. Leaving a comment just to say “yum!” won’t count.

Follow Lindsay Clendaniel on twitter and then leave a comment, along with your twitter handle, saying you did. If you already are following her, let me know that along with your twitter handle.

For extra chances, visit as many of the other blogger’s sites and read their #ICTScoopAdventures posts and then come back here and leave a specific comment about each one. Leave a separate comment for each blog you go and visit, please. This will give you up to 11 more chances, depending on how spunky you are feeling!

You may enter through Thursday, July 10, 2014 at 7pm, Eastern Time. I will then choose a winner using random.org.

Best of luck in the giveaway, and thank you so much for spending some time here with me today! Now go and visit all the other wonderful bloggers for more chances to win. Yay!

I’ve been trying to decide if I like hummus, too, by making a batch about every week I have a feeling I may need to do the same with this ice cream…but I know I’d fall madly in love after just one bite!

Isn’t it funny how we keep having to make sure? I mean, just to be *really* sure…?! lol This is some serious grown-up ice cream. Just sweet enough. If you’re a tahini fan, I think you’d really like it!

Those are the perfect SCOOP, Jenni! Absolutely gorgeous photos and flavors. Thank you so much for including me in your reindeer games!

I used to buy sesame brittle when we lived in KL and bring it home for my grandfather. He loved it so much and it’s hard to find in the US except in Asian markets. I wish I could make your ice cream for him.

My favorite ice cream flavor is Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Their chocolate ice cream is perfect; it’s rich, creamy, and overly chocolatey. It has chunks of fudgey brownies throughout it. It’s amazing! I’m ashamed to say that I can eat a whole pint of it in one sitting!

I eat ice cream very rarely because it doesn’t generally sit well with me. So when I do eat it, it has to be something really special. My dream ice cream must have wonderful crunchy somethings in it. Salty mixed with the sweet, and something entirely unexpected. I’m dreaming of curry and peanuts somehow incorporated into ice cream!

This is such a creative flavor! I would love to give this one a try for myself. This book is quite impressive. I am so happy that I can actually make ice cream that tastes good and has the consistency of ice cream! YAY! Thank you for telling us all about Scoop Adventures.